This book draws from the author's nearly three-decade career of being "the only one in the room". Cecile Shellman builds a process for individualizing, identifying, and prioritizing DEAI challenges; acknowledges key universal challenges in goal-setting and goal achieving; and shares resources and tools for making and charting progress.
Diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in all aspects of museums’ structure and programming are top issues in the field today – and in the overall arts/culture sector. Much has been written, from various perspectives, over several decades. Yet, a lack of diversity remains and exclusive practices and inequities persist in all types of museums. A go-to resource for readers interested in learning about diversity and inclusion work in the field – past, present and future. This edited collection of the most important essays, speeches, and reports on these topics seeks to facilitate a much-needed intergenerational dialogue that builds on lessons from the past, broadens thinking about the many different facets of this complex work, and ignites inspiration for continuing to correct inequities across museums of all types, sizes, and locations. In this book compiled and edited by Dr. Johnnetta Betch Cole, who has served as both director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and as the president of both historically Black colleges for women in the United States, Spelman College and Bennett College (a distinction she alone holds) and Laura Lott, president and CEO of the American Alliance of Museums, (the first woman to the lead the organization), thought leaders in the museum field present their research, analysis and work to answer some of the most challenge questions facing the museum field. Why do these problems persist? How can a new generation of museum leaders champion change to better represent the communities that museums strive to serve and engage? What can we learn from those who have been observing, experiencing, and writing about these issues?
A New Role for Museum Educators shows how learning happens in communities, how volunteers and professionals approach their work, the underlying principles and philosophies that guide the work of museum education, and how these practices are always evolving to remain relevant. Museum education in its most expansive definition is about communicating messages, creating learning experiences, and, at its most aspirational, promoting human development for people of all backgrounds, abilities, and circumstances. This edited volume revisits the legacy of museum education practices, reflecting on the changing context of community and the role of cultural institutions, and provides insights into new directions that museums can take with a visitor-centered mindset. It provides foundational concepts around educational philosophies that guide practice, applied methods and approaches for implementation, and the ethos of an educational institution intended to support community learning and engagement that are essential to provide for the wide-ranging needs of all audiences. International perspectives from a variety of museums are considered, including art museums, children’s museums, history museums and historic sites, science museums, botanical gardens, zoos, and aquariums. Chapters include thought-provoking reflections on contemporary practices, concrete examples from across the globe, and useful tools for anyone working with public audiences. Grounded in practice and informed by research, this volume will be a go-to resource for arts and cultural organization practitioners, particularly those working in Museum Education. It will also be essential reading for students of Museum Studies, Education, and related fields
An Accessible Past helps historic sites overcome barriers to accessibility by clarifying what historic sites must do in order to be legally compliant; in addition, this edited volume provides case studies of creative ways visitors can engage with the museum while retaining the historic integrity of the places and spaces in question. This book will help readers think outside the box when it comes to accessibility at historic sites, regardless of their size or budget. This book is for practitioners and students in the fields of public history and museum studies. Offers practical and low-cost ideas for increasing accessibility at historic sites, while retaining the historic integrity of the places and spaces in question. Provides an overview of legal obligations and ideas for making historic sites accessible. Demonstrates how, by being more accessible, historic sites and museums will be able to invite new audiences to their locations, strengthening the sustainability of these organizations and promoting the relevancy of history to more visitors than in the past.
The Inclusive Museum Leader offers insights and perspectives from two recognized museum leaders who have joined together to offer practical solutions and opportunities responding to the call for museums to play an active social justice role.
Aimed at museum educators, Multiculturalism in Art Museums Today seeks to marry museum and multicultural education theories. It reveals how the union of these theories yields more equitable educational practices and guides museum educators to address misrepresentation, exclusivity, accessibility, and educational inequality. This contemporary text is directive; it encourages museum educators to consider the critical multicultural education theoretical framework in their day-to-day functions in order to illuminate and combat shortcomings at the crux of museum education: Museum Educators as Change Agents Inclusion versus Exclusion Collaboration with Diverse Audiences Responsive Pedagogy This book adopts a broad definition of multiculturalism, which names not only race and ethnicity as concerns, but also gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, age, and class. While focusing on these various facets of identity, the authors demonstrate how museums are social systems that should offer comprehensive, diverse educational experiences not only through exhibitions but through other educational activities. The authors pull from their own research and practical experiences which exemplify how museums have been and can be attentive to these areas of identity. Multiculturalism in Art Museums Today is hopeful and inspiring, as it identifies and commends the positive and effective practices that some museum educators have enacted in an effort to be inclusive. Museum educators are at the front-line interacting with the public on a daily basis. Thus, these educators can be the real vanguard of change, modeling critical multicultural behavior and practices.
The Manual of Museum Management, Third Edition presents a comprehensive and detailed analysis of: the principles of museum organization, the ways in which people work together to accomplish museum objectives, and the ways in which museums, large and small, can function most effectively. This new edition offers updated information on the key aspects of museum practice that dominate today – everything from “flatter” organizational models, shared leadership, the efflorescence of digital practice and complexity in the field, museums and social justice, the hard work and positive rewards of community engagement and partnership, platform “balance” to alternative revenue models. All new contemporary “snapshots” provided by practitioners and drawn from museums and galleries around the world bring the principles to life and digitally-accessed links and resources (in the e-book) round out the relevance and usefulness of this third edition.
Beverly Serrell and Katherine Whitney cover the essentials of the processes of exhibit label planning, writing, design, and production. In this third edition, Serrell’s classic guide to writing interpretive exhibit labels is updated to include new voices, current scholarship and the unique issues the museum field is grappling with in the 21st century. With high quality photographs and new sections, this edition is more accessible and easier to use for all museum professionals, from label writers to museum directors to exhibit designers.
How does a diverse community thrive in spaces that were designed to be exclusionary? Museums—with histories tied to colonial violence and racist practices and whose survival is largely reliant on the generosity of wealthy donors—were not built to be inclusive. Yet many museums’ missions and the people who bring these missions to life have egalitarian aims. In recent years museum practitioners across the country have been proactively confronting our histories of colonization and exclusion and advancing equity and inclusion. Museums of all types have formed cross-departmental teams to critique their internal practices, review hiring processes, and ultimately foster a more diverse and inclusive environment for both visitors and staff alike. But how do such initiatives get off the ground? How do individuals build support among all stakeholders and successfully advocate for new positions, programs, and cross-departmental working groups? How can colleagues work together across departments to foster more inclusive museum practices? This book from the American Alliance of Museums brings together a collection of tools, solutions, and models from DEAI practitioners who have actively worked together towards institutional change. With 60% BIPOC authorship, this book will provide hope and inspiration, as well as concrete strategies for museum workers all over the country who are achieving small wins and fostering sweeping change in the predominantly white cultural sector through innovation, collaboration, and courage. This is the first book to focus specifically on collaborative and inclusive practices in equity and anti-racism work in different types of museums. Its case studies demonstrate the importance of relationship building, authentic connections, and developing foundations together over time, providing a much-needed resource for museum professionals at every level who are grappling with inequities that are pervasive in museums.
Inward, Outward, Onward, Upward: A Lifelong Journey Towards Anti-Oppression and Inclusion in Museums puts forth an incisive look at diversity, equity, accessibility, inclusion, anti-racism, pro-marginalized people and museums. It asks its readers—museum professionals, paraprofessionals, museum governing bodies, and museum academic programs—to practice the skills of looking inward, developing empathy, working collaboratively across the museum to address the systemic effects of unexamined oppression, and working tirelessly for justice and change. DEAI—or whatever permutation of initials one might apply to this complex, critical concern—is not just about who leads museums and what they look like. It’s about acknowledging and redressing harms to people who have been, and continue to be, unjustly neglected, unfairly treated, willfully minoritized, and historically hidden from museums. It’s about looking at both the systems and the people who have caused harm and seeking to ameliorate them. It’s about being generous enough, brave enough, and vulnerable enough to learn from other people about ourselves, our shared motivations, beliefs, and practices, and to heal our world from the inside out. Leading museum DEAI consultant Cecile Shellman here offers more tools to help us talk, think, and work together. Chapters cover such hard topics as “The Individual and the 21st Century Museum: How Museums Have Changed and Why Individuals Need to Adapt,” “Don’t We All Matter? Why Tolerance and Kindness are Not Enough,” and “Understanding the Relationship between Privilege and Power: Making Decisions and Keeping Promises about DEAI Work.” Shellman offers numerous worksheets and forms that can be used by individuals or in group training sessions.
